8
THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 11, 2017
NIGHT LIFE
1
ROCK AND POP
Musicians and night-club proprietors lead
complicated lives; it's advisable to check
in advance to con rm engagements.
Chris Cohen
Listen closely, because he sings softly; Cohen is
a bit o a treasure. His comfort shines through
his performances, and nods toward his show-
biz background as the son o Kip Cohen, an ac-
complished record man and the former director
o the Fillmore East, and the Broadway actress
Lynn Cohen. His label boss at Captured Tracks,
Mike Sniper, recently commented, "Whenever I
get depressed about running an indie rock label
in 2016, I can take solace in knowing I put out
two Chris Cohen LPs." Those records, "Over-
grown Path" and last year's "As I Apart," have a
low-slung, wistful posture that continues to pull
kids into dingy halls and college radio stations,
and his autumn-air vocals evoke Arthur Lee and
Ariel Pink in the best ways. (Murmrr Theatre,
17 Eastern Pkwy., Brooklyn. murmrr.com. Sept. 9.)
Lucy Dacus
It takes a kind o bravery to be humorless. On
the drowsy indie number "I Don't Wanna Be
Funny Anymore," this singer-songwriter from
Richmond, Virginia, cycles through all the year-
book superlatives she'd rather claim. "I'll read
the books, and I'll be the smartest / I'll play gui-
tar, and I'll be the artist," she declares. "Try not
to laugh." Things unfurl a bit when she addresses
the second person: "I get smoke in my eyes every
time I try to look you in the eye," she sings on
"Strange Torpedo," a middling image that may
intentionally obfuscate the sentiment. But no
matter her perspective at a given moment, she
has a round, unhurried tone that voices indeci-
siveness well. Dacus performs in support o Big
Thief. (Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 N. 6th St.,
Brooklyn. 718-486-5400. Sept. 11.)
Goldie Awards 1st Annual D.J. & Beat Battle
In 1997, at the age o fteen, Alain Macklovitch
made his début at the DMC World Champion-
ship, an international d.j. competition that recog-
nized the best record wigglers and sample blend-
ers across a hugely ballooning community o
turntablists. Performing as A-Trak, he stole the
show that year, setting o a twenty-year career
o producing and d.j.ing, as well as co-founding
his own dance and hip-hop imprint, Fool's Gold.
These days, turntable routines have mostly gone
the way o the novelty voice-mail prompt, but
producers and d.j.s still drive the sounds o pop-
ular music; Macklovitch hopes to give them a
central hub with this inaugural event, in which
eight d.j.s and eight producers will clash for brag-
ging rights and the approval o judges including
Diplo, Mannie Fresh, Mija, Just Blaze, and Craze.
(Brooklyn Steel, 319 Frost St., Brooklyn. goldieawards.
vice.com. Sept. 7.)
Half Waif
Nandi Rose Plunkett records and sings as Hal
Waif, when she's not playing with her beloved folk
band, Pinegrove. Fans o Plunkett's solo material
believe in her pop chops; throughout her latest
release, "form/a," the twenty-eight-year-old vo-
calist and producer o ers cerebral, moody move-
ments that build into splashing dance choruses.
She works in shades o the traditional bhajans and
Celtic pop music that she inhaled as a child from
her parents (an Indian refugee from Uganda and
an Irish-American), but it was her time as a music
major at Kenyon College and, eventually, her im-
mersion in the dense D.I.Y. community in north-
ern New Jersey that expanded Plunkett's reper-
toire. In uences from these environments graze
her sound, but ambling songs like "Frost Burn"
still aren't easy to pin down. (Alphaville, 140 Wil-
son Ave., Brooklyn. Sept. 12.)
Of Montreal
This o spring o the Elephant 6 Recording Com-
pany, a collective o musicians that gave birth
to several indie bands in the nineties, includ-
ing Neutral Milk Hotel and the Apples in Ste-
reo, has a catalogue o pop music eleven albums
wide. Kevin Barnes, the act's front man and mas-
termind, thinks up quirky ways to serve catchy
hooks. Tending toward psychedelic turf, his songs
establish a place where ower power and vaude-
ville coexist. (The Bell House, 149 7th St., Brook-
lyn. 718-643-6510. Sept. 8.)
Queens of the Stone Age
This brainchild o the former Kyuss singer and
guitarist Josh Homme emerged at the tail end
o the nineties, with a beefy, hook-laden sound
that encapsulated the best bits o punk, metal,
and stoner rock and the dying embers o that
decade's de ning sound, grunge. Huge singles
from its "Songs for the Dea " record slingshot
the band into MTV's orbit by 2002, and the al-
bum's dingy interstate-drive texture has proven
ageless. Fifteen years and three albums later, the
Queens have o ered up "Villains," co-helmed by
the pop auteur Mark Ronson, doubling down on
the carny pop that helped the group rst stick out.
"The Way You Used to Do" is far from a return
to old habits, but few would expect a step back-
ward from this merry band o outsiders. (Capi-
tol Theatre, 149 Westchester Ave., Port Chester, N.Y.
thecapitoltheatre.com. Sept. 6.)
2 Chainz
As the genre has grown crowded, and the min-
imalist sound has been all but fully explored,
trap music is undergoing the requisite period o
self-reference that comes with saturation. Enter
2 Chainz, the winking sideman with a healthy
amount o hit verses under his belt, elevated by
close ties with Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music im-
print. The Georgia native's latest album, "Pretty
Girls Like Trap Music," captures the moment in
its campy title: songs like "Blue Cheese," with
Migos, and "Good Drank," with Gucci Mane, are
songs to Snapchat to, designed to sparkle like an
expensive liquor bottle and laden with outland-
ish one-liners that play most appropriately after
the kids are in bed. His show at Terminal 5 prom-
ises to feel more like a night at the club than a
concert, cheaper drinks notwithstanding. ( Te r -
minal 5, at 610 W. 56th St. 212-582-6600. Sept. 6.)
Wiki
This Upper West Side native stepped out from
his Ratking trio to deliver a solo full-length, "Lil
Me," at the end o 2015. The nasal-voiced twenty-
three-year-old adores and abhors his city in equal
measure, considering the "old blocks" he grew up
on while wandering past the "new kids" who now
share his sidewalks. Terse, frostbitten beats drag
inventive new rhythms from grime and noise in-
uences, and Wiki's thick, buoyant cadence keeps
the subject matter from getting too heavy. His
latest solo album, "No Mountains in Manhat-
tan," turns the lens even farther inward, a color-
ful, technical clinic in the odd angled rhyming
patterns o Cam'ron and Eminem from a post-
Bloomberg vantage. He performs the new record
at this home-town album-release show. (Rough
Trade NYC, 64 N. 9th St., Brooklyn. roughtrade-
nyc.com. Sept. 11.)
1
JAZZ AND STANDARDS
The Will and Peter Anderson Quintet
Think o them as the jazz equivalent o the
antique-seeking Keno brothers, twins who have
staked a claim to the specialized territory they've
now become identi ed with. The brothers An-
derson are saxophone and clarinet virtuosos
who delight in burrowing deep into traditional,
swing, and mainstream jazz. Staunch defenders
o the faith yet increasingly open to wider mu-
sical horizons, these siblings are works in prog-
ress worth attending to. (Smalls, 183 W. 10th St.
212-252-5091. Sept. 9.)
Ben Monder Trio
Monder may be decades younger than the vi-
sionary drummer Andrew Cyrille, but the ven-
turesome guitarist found common ground with
the older legend on the 2015 release "Amorphae."
Joining them is the saxophonist Tony Malaby, a
tough-minded improviser who will add poetic
grit to the mix. (Cornelia Street Café, 29 Cornelia
St. 212-989-9319. Sept. 9.)
Katie Thiroux
"O Beat," Thiroux's sophomore release, makes
good on the promise o a multitasking talent who
swings her bass with a Mack-truck-powered lilt
that would make her hero Ray Brown proud, and
who transforms her smallish voice into a thing
o delight (as on the Sinatra obscurity "When
the Wind Was Green"). Thiroux's quartet is but-
tressed by the clarinet and saxophone ace Ken
Peplowski. (Birdland, 315 W. 44th St. 212-581-
3080. Sept. 10.)
Jeff (Tain) Watts
Paying tribute to Elvin Jones, the late genius o
modern-jazz drumming whose name is indeli-
bly linked with that o John Coltrane, the re-
lentlessly propulsive drummer brings together
veterans o Jones's bands, including the saxo-
phonists Sonny Fortune, Dave Liebman, and Ravi
Coltrane. He concludes the engagement with a
trio featuring the guitarist Kevin Eubanks that
will also honor Jones. (Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th
St. 212-576-2232. Sept. 5-10.)
Steve Wilson and Wilsonian's Grain
A trusted A-list sideman (Maria Schneider's or-
chestra, Chick Corea's Origin band) who knows
just what to do when he takes command o the
spotlight, the expressive alto and soprano saxo-
phonist and utist Wilson's own quartet is bol-
stered by such stalwarts as the pianist Orrin Evans
(soon to be a member o the Bad Plus) and the
bassist Ugonna Okegwo. (Smoke, 2751 Broadway, be-
tween 105th and 106th Sts. 212-864-6662. Sept. 8-10.)